Strictly business? Personal tweets make profs more “credible”

Students consider professors who tweet about their personal lives to be more …

Those who use their Twitter accounts for both personal and professional purposes often find themselves wondering whether they are damaging their credibility with funny anecdotes or social tweets. According to a study published in the March issue of Learning, Media and Technology, however, the answer to that question is a resounding "no."

Instead, students perceive instructors who make social tweets as more credible than instructors who remain strictly business, lending support to the idea that knowing a real human is behind the Twitter stream helps people feel more confident about that person's abilities.

Authored by Elizabethtown College professor of communications Kirsten Johnson and undergraduate student Jamie Bartolino, the paper examines how students perceive professors when they follow their social media updates on Twitter. The paper refers to five "factors of credibility" identified in a 1974 study: competence, character, sociability, composure, and extraversion.

They also touch on the importance of "self-disclosure" in the classroom (revealing personal information about yourself to better relate with students). There's a fine line between an appropriate level of self-disclosure and what the Kids These Days™ consider to be "too much information," so Johnson set out to discover whether online self-disclosure is treated the same way as it is in an academic environment.

120 students between the ages of 18 and 23 participated in the study, with 30 percent of the group saying they had a Twitter account. The students were then split into three groups: those who saw only scholarly tweets, those who saw only social tweets, and those who saw a mix of the two. (All of the posts to the sample Twitter accounts were made up by the researchers based on their own experience using Twitter.) Each Twitter account made 22 tweets, and they all included the same number of hyperlinks. The students were then instructed to rate the credibility of the professor based on the tweets they observed.

The group that only saw social tweets ended up rating that professor higher in credibility than the group that saw only scholarly tweets. Researchers also said there was an especially significant difference in ratings when it came to whether a professor was "caring" or not.

"These results support previous research that shows revealing personal information can increase a professor's perceived credibility," says the paper. "[I]t was interesting to note that the scholarly tweets did not significantly raise competence ratings in the groups that saw the scholarly posts. This could be an indication that caring, not competence, is the most important dimension when it comes to assessing perceived credibility on social networking sites."

Not all students felt good about the social tweets, though. The researchers found that older students tended to rate the professors lower in credibility after having viewed their Twitter accounts. These students were also more likely to think it was a bad idea for professors to have Twitter accounts at all, citing the potential for revealing too much personal information and creating an awkward student/teacher relationship. The researchers also noted that the fake professors were all female, and that another study may want to see whether there's a difference in perception when male professors are used.

So if you find yourself tweeting in a professional capacity and wonder whether it's kosher to post a funny cat photo or to tweet about your kids, don't worry—those posts will likely boost your personability and, in turn, your credibility. At least among the young.

29 Reader Comments

I'd say that tweeting about your personal life makes you more "real", and increases your social capital, as opposed to remaining The Professor who is an idea more than s/he is a person. More social capital, more credibility.

I remember reading a quote awhile back, I think it was from Zuckerberg. The gist was that a person with more than one online identity was dishonest, meaning if you have to keep your personal life separate from your professional colleagues, you're hiding something. Everyone knows when you hide something, you do it because you know it's wrong. This study seems to at least somewhat back that sentiment.

Everyone knows when you hide something, you do it because you know it's wrong.

Or because it's unpopular. I can think of quite a few environments in which being conservative is a liability, and quite a few in which being liberal is one. Atheism is no more welcome in the small-town South than fervent religious belief is in most coastal circles.

Personally, I solve the problem by having caretaker accounts on social media services - nobody can use my name, because I'm there, but I don't put anything important (whether personal or professional) on them.

There's a certain amout of personal stuff that has to be in your tweet stream for it to be believable. Personally, I keep Facebook for family and friends. Few colleagues and professionals are friended on Facebook. I share photo's of my children on Facebook with people I know.

That said, knowing that the guy you follow on Twitter is a Red Sox fan or that he went through something personal adds to the credibility of the voice behind the tweet simply because we're skeptical of the alias. There's too many celebrities and organizations that have a PR group tweeting everything and we've become good at sniffing out those fake twitter accounts. Seeing a personal tweet, confirms that there is a human with real feelings behind the tweet, hence suspending our inclination to believe that the tweeter is a spammer/advertiser/sell out/scum...

It's similar to a blog. I follow your blog for a topic or two that interests me. If you go off topic for post after post, I'll stop following you but a few posts here and there make you real and therefore I stick around. If you turn your blog into a sales pitch or your tweets into a sales stream, all the personal tweets in the world won't get me to continue to follow you. So YMMV but in general, sprinkling your official tweets with personal tweets is a good thing.

I assume there is sarcasm here, because this seems like fairly predictable human behavior. Just like anything else, people are generally going to approve of someone who is more personable than not.

I don't think it's sarcasm. If you really take a person more credibly because of a tweet on something that has nothing to do with why someone is instructing you, then you've completely missed the main point of college

I remember reading a quote awhile back, I think it was from Zuckerberg. The gist was that a person with more than one online identity was dishonest, meaning if you have to keep your personal life separate from your professional colleagues, you're hiding something. Everyone knows when you hide something, you do it because you know it's wrong. This study seems to at least somewhat back that sentiment.

Zuckerberg is in his own visionary world.

One may work with a bunch of crackpots, backstabbers, and possible pedos where an ounce of information is enough for them to get way too much information on your family. Did we not just read in the past few weeks on the HB Gary use of social networks and Anon's use of it against them.

Something as simple as a professor tweeting visiting D.C. and Smithsonian today gives enough information to his students to get robbed in the right region.

I assume there is sarcasm here, because this seems like fairly predictable human behavior. Just like anything else, people are generally going to approve of someone who is more personable than not.

I don't think it's sarcasm. If you really take a person more credibly because of a tweet on something that has nothing to do with why someone is instructing you, then you've completely missed the main point of college

No, you haven't.

What makes a professor good is his ability to impart knowledge and explain, not how much he knows.Generally, a person who is more personable is also more approachable and is better at communication, traits which are important to every educator.

If knowledge is all that makes a professor good, then Wikipedia can easily replace them.

What makes a professor good is his ability to impart knowledge and explain, not how much he knows.Generally, a person who is more personable is also more approachable and is better at communication, traits which are important to every educator.

If knowledge is all that makes a professor good, then Wikipedia can easily replace them

Thank you, this is essentially what my point was. Not to mention, the tweeting is tangential at best. The hypothetical profs tweeting about non-class stuff are probably also the ones who are more approachable in general.

This study is conducted from a student's point of view. I wonder if the results would be the same if it was conducted from the point of view of the professor's peers?

For some university teaching staff, the teaching portion of their job is the annoying sideshow that cuts into the time that they'd like to devote to their research. These people aren't going to tweet personal information in order to encourage their students to respect them, if there's a chance that they might lose credibility in their research field.

I'm not saying that it necessarily would, but I'd like to see a study that takes that side of a university lecturer's work into account.

This study is conducted from a student's point of view. I wonder if the results would be the same if it was conducted from the point of view of the professor's peers?

In my experience, most professors stick with the older technologies that they already know: pine instead of webmail, FORTRAN instead of C++, TeX instead of LaTeX, ... Twitter does not seem to be appealing for this audience.

The conclusion of the article is right on: it matters a lot to students whether the instructor is "caring". So how successfully can someone fake being caring? As I understand, the students in this study saw nothing but 22 tweets, all of which were fake (fiction written for the purpose of the study).

Obviously I"m too old for this kind of social media. I've never seen anything worth reading on a tweet yet. And the idea that a prof. is more competent because he tweets is appalling to me. As someone else already pointed out, what the hell can you say in 140 characters that is relevant to coursework other than "test on Monday, don't forget." kind of crap.

Perhaps the Ars author can post on this: it would be nice to know how the authors are using the term 'credibility'.

Does that mean students believe the tweeting professor actually knows more on their subject than one that does not? Or does that mean the subject itself is lent more credibility (or legitimacy?) when the teaching professor tweets personal anecdotes and so on?

Just from this summary it seems like it's less credibility at stake than likability or authenticity (definitely important things for a professor either way). I think we should how they define the term credibility.

Obviously I"m too old for this kind of social media. I've never seen anything worth reading on a tweet yet. And the idea that a prof. is more competent because he tweets is appalling to me. As someone else already pointed out, what the hell can you say in 140 characters that is relevant to coursework other than "test on Monday, don't forget." kind of crap.

If you want an example of how to mix and mingle tweets, facebook status updates and blogging, I suggest you read Mark Suster's blog. http://bothsidesofthetable.com The guy does a fantastic job of being personable and approachable while maintaining a professional blog/twitter feed. When I discuss driving traffic to a web site via blogging/tweeting with a client, it is his web site that I use as a reference.

While his motivation is to find VC deals and companies to invest in, I've found his thoughts on Twitter, social proof and blog content (stock versus flow) to be spot on. What this article describes is the side effect of what happens to credibility when you tweet with a certain pattern. (professional with scattered personal tweets) If you're interested in this article's topic and looking for an example of it in practice, check out the site.

Disclosure: I have no affiliation with the site other than following it as a fan for about a year.

So how am I supposed to interpret this as someone who's teaching is their profession? Should I be more personable online, and risk being fired?

First, it depends on your students. The younger and worse behaved the group, the less informal you can be.

Second, if you take a personable approach, do it as non-controversially as possible. Rooting for a sports team, posting pictures of cute kittens, fine. Promoting specific viewpoints, especially on controversial topics, potentially problematic. Posting links to sexually explicit content: not a good idea. Be prepared to step back from your posts: If you tweet 'Go Yankees" in a Boston school and students start arguing with you in class, insist this isn't the venue for that discussion, and don't tweet on that topic again.

Finally, the best teachers I had would share insight into their life while at the same time teaching. Recite an anecdote with a moral: some funny time when highschool math came in handy, a story of a trip to D.C. that ends in a discussion of the neat things you learned at the Smithsonian. The worst teachers were often the ones who'd share inappropriately. Students don't really want to hear about your dating life.

I assume there is sarcasm here, because this seems like fairly predictable human behavior. Just like anything else, people are generally going to approve of someone who is more personable than not.

I don't think it's sarcasm. If you really take a person more credibly because of a tweet on something that has nothing to do with why someone is instructing you, then you've completely missed the main point of college

No, you haven't.

What makes a professor good is his ability to impart knowledge and explain, not how much he knows.Generally, a person who is more personable is also more approachable and is better at communication, traits which are important to every educator.

If knowledge is all that makes a professor good, then Wikipedia can easily replace them.

Your argument basically states there's only one type of good instructor, one that is approachable. That in and of itself is debatable. It is also besides the point. "Good" is not the same as "credible." I've had to sit through my share of bad instructors, but they were still credible. I had no doubt what they were saying is true (given that it matched the department issued textbook, other instructors when material overlapped, or matched my own research when applicable) even if their delivery was absolute crap. At the same time, I can think of two professors who had excellent delivery and were downright charismatic, but were full of crap. I do not view them as credible. Stating things that are theoretically unsound or proven factually false are what should be the sole indicator of one's academic credibility.

What you, and these students are doing, is making the basic mistake of confusing style and substance. Which is something my at least schools took great pains to explain (well, not so much in grad school, they assumed I already knew): academia is about the content (and I guess networking, but that's again besides the point).

My spouse is a professor at a small liberal arts college. One of the benefits of attending said institution is that the professor, not TA or assistant is readily available to students taking their courses. The old fashion way, office hours. We do not participate in social media, so do the students consider this professor as "square" or "aloof"? Perhaps.

Newer and younger academics, may be quite comfortable with this type of interaction. There are other ways to be accessible and open to your students. (Attending on campus lectures, events, etc.) I must say that at larger institutions, Tweeting and facebook might work better for prof's that teach huge lecture courses with TA's.